A journey of discovery with Lewis and Clark

"Our care of the child should be governed, 

not by the desire to make him learn things, 

but by the endeavor always to keep burning within him 

that light which is called intelligence."

Maria Montessori

Lewis and Clark!  Our oldest children spent the last month learning about the great journey of Lewis and Clark, their Corps of Discovery, and their incredible exploration across a wild continent which we can barely imagine now.  I had an "idea" of how the process would go, with certain projects in mind.  But these children led the way instead, they shaped the process themselves, and it turned out more wonderful than I could have imagined.

Early in July we created the map you can see above, and began to trace the journey.  I gathered collected a set of books about Lewis and Clark, from the library, and quite a few that I purchased. We read them all, a bit at a time, reading sections more than once, overlapping the story from different perspectives, following the journey on the map.  "Seaman's Journal" told the story from the perspective of Lewis' dog Seaman. Several books focused on Sacagawea, and the girls were on fire with interest about her.  (Did you know she was only 15 or 16?)   I read some of the simpler stories to all the children in the morning, but it soon became clear that this was an extended-day, afternoon project.  It developed a life of its own. 

As it happens, these three oldest girls have been doing free writing in their "story folders" for many months now, it's a real passion for them, and this was the part I didn't anticipate.  They began to write the story bit by bit on their "story pages," and to draw picture after picture.  It became both a shared and separate project, sometimes they worked together, sometimes alone, each child just lit up about her own work.  I realized we should set these pages aside, and I began to tell them they were writing their own book.  Then we found out the date for Morgan's last day, which gave us an end goal.  Each of their books were finished last Friday, and they shared them and told the story to the whole group of children.

Their books were going home, so I photographed just some of their pages, randomly moving from one child's book to another - I gathered the tale with the camera.  This is what I want to share, a mix of their pages, with no names attached.  I have simply typed their words verbatim.    

two men livd in virginai, lewis and clark.

[Julian's brother Luca caught just a bit of the story early on, and created this]

They fild the keel boat with supleys in 1804

  

lewis and clark went on a long jrney

they brot gifts to the indians

lewis and clark, and seaman was a dog

they went up a long rivr

the bear got shot

Sacagawea had babe in wintr

Sacagauaya careed her baby

Sacagawea helpt them find food

sacagawea found hur bruthr

they crost the mountains

they rech the Pusific ocen in Novembr 1805

in march 1806 they strted east but there wuz a fight

they went down rivr to go home 1806

Here are our proud and beautiful explorers, Ava, Cara, and Morgan, as they finished this most wonderful part of their own "journeys of discovery."  As William Clark wrote in his journal when the Corps of Discovery first sighted the Pacific Ocean, "Oh the joy."

The first thing we had was a little pea

All our handling of the child will bear fruit, 

not only at the moment, 

but in the adult they are destined to become."

Maria Montessori

We sing a simple gardening song this time of year.  We act it out, when we're gathered inside.  We live it out, when we're gardening outside, one time after another. The song's lyrics go like this, with many variations:

(March 1)

"The first thing we had was a little pea (or 'seed'.... or 'bean'....)

The first thing we had was a little pea,

The frist thing we had was a little pea,

The Lord's gonna bless our garden."  (or sometimes, 'the Earth's'....)

(April 3)

"The next thing we had was a little shoot...."

[repeat as above]

(April 10)

"The next thing we had was a little root...."

[repeat]

(May 17)

(June 3)

(June 3)

"The next thing we had was a little vine...."  (or 'a great big vine'....)

[repeat]

(June 10)

"The next thing we had were a lot of peas....
[repeat]

The Lord (...or Earth...) has surely blessed our garden."

(June 10)

And yes, your children who may perhaps refuse many vegetables out of habit at the dinner table, have been eating chard and spinach and peas and lettuce and broccoli, garden to hand to mouth, throughout this spring.  It's a joy to see.

This brings me back to the Montessori quote at the beginning:  "All our handling of the child will bear fruit, not only at the moment, but in the adult they are destined to become."

[And now you can congratulate me on a simple blog with very few words!

Let the summer begin!]

(June 18)

Africa!

"We shall walk together on this path of life, 

for all things are part of the universe, 

and are connected to each other to form one whole unity."

Maria Montessori

We've "left" Africa now, and I thought it would be good to remind you of our journey.  Every year at Chickadee we dive into an exploration of one continent.   Where do we begin?  With stories and picture books.   Then, over many weeks, we introduce different aspects of the land and culture, using music, pictures, animals, food, 3-part cards, maps, arts and crafts, and so on.  The children begin to develop some idea of another culture, different possibilities, the infinite variety of life on earth.  Last year it was Asia; last summer, Australia.  This spring it has been Africa.

We realize that we can't give children of this age anything like a real grasp of the size and the incredibly grand array of life on any continent.   Our mission is simply to plant seeds of awareness, and to nurture their budding sense of connection, wonder, and respect.  They are, after all, both present and future citizens of the global village.  

So we begin, again and again, with the globes and the puzzle map of the world.  We sing the song of the continents.  We match key animals to each continent.  We play bring-me games to help them firm up the vocabulary.  We connect cards and pictures and folders to the colors of the continents.  And slowly, slowly, over their years with us, with lots of repetition, the children begin to know and name earth's continents, biomes, and some countries.  

Here is Cara on the day she finished her pricked map of the world.  She labeled the continents and framed it with animal stickers.   She is bursting with pride; her finger points to the panda in the corner.


For this year's cycle, we focused on Africa.  The rest of this post shares some of the activities that the kids were doing (or if not doing, at least watching)  during this time.

Rhythm, movement, sound.  Ah music!  It offers a direct line to our consciousness.  Julian's mom brought in this great drum which she got during her own adventure in Africa.  These several ethnic instruments were in constant use; in the sunny weather the children took them out to the grass.  We also played a CD of African acoustic music, given to us by Lucas' dad Rob, and we are still singing an African lullaby.

Biomes.  Earlier in the year we introduced the biomes, part of every year's curriculum.  Here Noah is using the biome puzzle map of Africa, and we notice that Africa has lots of desert and lots of grasslands.  

Accompanying this map were sets of 3-part cards of animals for each major biome in Africa, and the simple biome readers, which are popular with every single child.  (Even though we have "finished" Africa, I left the biome readers out, because some children still use them every day.)  

  
Morgan traced, painted, and labeled that Africa biome map, a solo project that no one else chose to do.  Then each child in our "extended-day" group created chalk pastel images of different biomes or natural features of Africa.  They each chose a picture they liked in one of our books of narrative photographs - Mount Kilamanjaro, Sahara Desert, a beautiful waterfall, savannah....  Seen all together, this bulletin board was a teacher in itself, so we kept it up for several weeks.

The grand array of African animals. Every child loves African animals, and everyone used this collection.  It includes those iconic animals most children learn as toddlers - such as elephant, zebra, and lion - as well as some that are less familiar - kudu, meercat, wildebeest.   They read the labels, or had someone read them; they sorted them by the biome they live in; they drew them; they played "I Spy" with their initial sounds; and they played freely with them.  Lots of play.

The puzzle map of African countries.  The political map is a complex puzzle with so many countries (I still need the control map to put it together; several children do not.)    Often an older child would invite a younger child to do the puzzle map together.  We also put out 13 flags of Africa, and we have a flag book that tells about each one.  The older kids matched the flags to the countries, and started drawing flags. They would ask us to read to them from the book, to find out what the colors and symbols meant.  


Here you can see Ava holding the flag of Liberia (it was formed by freed slaves who returned to Africa, thus its similarity to the US flag).   She also noticed that Sudan is one piece in our puzzle map, but the paper map she was coloring had it split in two, so we talked about how the people there recently decided to divide the land into two countries.   (For obvious reasons we talked very little about present-day political Africa, so much suffering.   I did find a nice book on Nelson Mandela.)

Leo created this impressive paper map of Africa.  In the last two years he has repeated all the puzzle maps so many times, and mastered them all.  He started pricking some African countries on his own, when we were still doing vertebrates, and no focus on Africa had been suggested.  He worked on them on and off, in the midst of all his other activities.  When the countries were all done, he glued them all down from top to bottom; then he carefully pricked out the countries too small to have their own puzzle piece, noticing every single detail he could find.  He felt such well-deserved pride and satisfaction from accomplishing this big work.

Village life.  Along with the many books we found at the library, we used a set of hand-made cards to show rural African people and many different aspects of their lives.  These little cards inspired drawings and writing. Above is one child's stylized rendition with the green cards she used laid out on the paper.  On the right is another. To go with her scene, this child wrote, "mom cooks bred in africa."  The idea of an outside clay oven heated by fire made a big impression.  

Art.  

Throughout these many weeks, related arts and crafts were happening. Simple things like the noodle necklaces, or these African masks, which didn't turn out very "ethnic" but were lots of fun.  We told the kids they were really more for hanging than for wearing, and some of them could tell stories about what their masks symbolized, like, "This is plants, and earth, and rain." 

Here is Lucy's vibrant zebra.  She used an Eric Carle picture card as a guide.   She drew the parts of his body with very little help, cut them out, and cut and glued down every stripe.  She was so proud of how the legs made him look like he's really moving.  

We closed the Africa cycle with our "paper people." Creating them is such a sweet process.   We might marvel at all the beautiful browns of their skin, asking, "Which color of skin do you want to use this time?"  Referring to one of our picture books, one of us might say, "Look at all the bright fabrics in their clothes!" or,  "The desert people cover themselves with white to stay cool and protected,"  and then ask, "Which clothes do you want to use for this person?"  As the last step, the child draws the person's face, two eyes, one mouth, always such a genuine expression of their pure experience and ability right in the moment.   We hope you love the African paper people who make their way home to you!     

"I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself."   Nelson Mandela

One Morning

"Respect all the reasonable forms of activity 

in which the child engages 

and try to understand them."

Maria Montessori

On Wednesday of this week, I set Erin and myself the task of recording every work every child did through two hours of the morning.  It's actually a valuable form of observation for us, drawing our attention to both predictable and unpredictable patterns and so many interesting moments.   My intention this time was simply to write this blog for you, before Spring Break.

So hey, we tried!  Here is one morning, like every morning in its uniqueness.  Erin was in the art room, I was in the main room (we trade days in the two rooms, pretty consistently), and Noriko went back and forth as needed.   I have woven our notes together as best I can. This accounting does not, however, include snack, so you can add to your mental picture as you read, each child getting snack (brown rice, apples, seaweed) and all the process that unfolds around their eating food and cleaning up.  This accounting does not include conversations either. That would be a separate and wonderful post indeed.

Isabel and Cara were both absent.  So this is a glimpse:  thirteen children, two hours.

*We begin here, with Noah, who started his day with his first biome reader, "The Vine that Chokes." Erin read the little booklet to him, one page at a time, and he put the pictures in order.  He was so inspired  that he proceeded to draw a story page and asked Erin to help him write down some words.

*Lucas started his day with a line drawing of one of the elaborate Czech eggs which Ava brought in to share.
*Seamus helped Noriko get snack ready and carry it out to the cubbies.  One or two children help her every morning, and it's a matter of pride for them.  Noriko simply looks for a child who isn't already engaged.
  

*Charlotte chose the hard-boiled egg slicing, with the slices served on crackers to the children.  Then she had a big clean-up, with lots of egg and some shell on the floor.  She needed Noriko's help.
*Brady was the first to do the miniature Easter tree decorating, a little set which I got out the night before (you'll discover here that it was in constant use.)

*I encouraged Leo to get out the "egg sentences" for the first time - six simple sentences about spring, the words on separate slips of paper, inside plastic eggs.   Leo read each word and put them in an order that makes sense - thus, a sentence! They were a perfect level of challenge for him.

*Rex chose the egg tree next.

Seamus watched Rex.
Leila watched Rex and Seamus.
They tried to keep their fingers off his work.
Meanwhile, Lucy painted at the easel.

*Lucas got out the last page of his hand-written vertebrate book.  He drew a ground squirrel yesterday, and was now copying the accompanying page, some simple facts about mammals.  He and Leo have done similar pages for fish, amphibian, reptile, and bird over these last many weeks of vertebrate work.   This project kept Lucas busy for the rest of the morning.

*Brady and Collin worked together on sound box 2 (c, g, h, r, i)  for a short while.  They were not really motivated, and put it away as soon as I turned my head. 

*Morgan did the binomial cube (I asked her to, because I had a lesson in mind).  She hadn't worked with it for quite a while, and had to practice for a bit.  She reminded herself how to do it.

*Noah served himself some bread and peanut butter (a one-person, free-choice extra snack). 

*Brady got out the geometric solids and the flat shapes which go with them, and proceeded to do some interesting building.

*Lucy did a story page about a penguin mama and chick, inspired by the beautiful paper collage penguin she created the day before.

*Charlotte worked with the rubber band design board, and then the screwdriver board.

*Seamus did some careful pouring of rice, very intent on not spilling a drop.

*Leila was next with the little egg tree, as soon as Rex put it away.

*Ava chose a biome booklet, reading many of the words on her own, and asking for help from Erin when she needed it.

*Collin painted at the easel.
At about this time, mid-morning, Erin noticed a familiar,  restless energy, and put on our music for "walking on the line."  Seven of the children joined in.  We tend to cycle in and out of regular walking on the line, and I was grateful that Erin thought of it this morning. They had fun walking while balancing simple trays and objects in their hands.

*Meanwhile, Noah did a new sorting work with Noriko, a set of cards about the five senses with words and pictures (eye, ear, nose, mouth, hand)  and lots of photos to match up.  He was very engaged, and they had a lovely, quiet time together.  

*Leo did the rubber band board (he'd been watching Charlotte earlier).  His designs were elaborate.

*Charlotte and I got out the small number rods. I sat on my new stool while she matched the rods to the cut-out numerals, and then I gave her a first lesson in number rod addition.

*Erin invited Rex to do his painted-paper collage bird; he chose a heath hen from the cards.  He worked on it carefully for a long time, drawing, cutting, and gluing, with Erin nearby to guide and help as needed.

*Morgan did the little egg tree.

*Lucy chose the hard-boiled egg serving - like Charlotte, she loves peeling, slicing, and sharing with friends - she has done the egg work every day this week.

*Morgan had finished the binomial cube, and I followed it with a lesson with the trinomial cube.  She was especially interested because of the special "trinomial cube story" she had heard me tell Cara the day before.  Once she can do the cube, with all the pieces mixed, and without any help, I will tell her the story too.

*Leila painted an egg.
*Brady worked with the dodecagon (12 sided) design puzzle.  This open-ended puzzle is very popular, in use every day. Some of the children, first inspired by Lucas and now including Brady, have started doing 3-D designs with the pieces.

*Ava played with the playdough for a while.
*Leila got out the metal inset work.  For a young three-year-old, she is quite skilled at tracing these shapes, and she's already been doing them for some months.

*Julian arrived about now, quite late (a sick mama), and began his day the way he begins almost every day - with free drawing.  Both he and Leila, our two youngest, are determined "pencil kids," with excellent fine-motor control.  Julian is consistent:  first he draws, then he eats snack, then he moves on, if there's time, to new and different activities.

*In the last half hour, Leo got out three of the colored, knobless cylinder boxes, and proceeded to build a magnificent tower. He drew quite an audience during his several attempts, first on table, then on chair, finally on floor, trying to get it all to balance.   That afternoon and again today, I saw one child after another getting out these cylinders, inspired by what he was doing. 

*Noah did the egg tree.
*Seamus played the lap harp.
*Julian painted an egg.

And then there we were, almost 11:00, the transition time for putting away work, helping hands, and gathering to sing our current spring song, then the ritual pulling on of rain pants, and the joyful heading outside.  All this during one morning, March 20, the Spring Equinox of 2013.

What's "extended day"?

"The things he sees are not just remembered;

they form a part of his soul."

Maria Montessori

We finished The Indian in the Cupboard today.  In classic Jude fashion, I read the last pages with a lump in my throat.   Yesterday I stopped before the closing pages of the last chapter, and we took it in slowly, imagining these two boys coming to terms with an ethical decision, and bravely saying good-bye to Little Bear and Boone and Bright Star.  I tried to capture the magic in this photo, their eyes big and round, their bodies still, but didn't quite get it, because of course their attention shifted when I grabbed the camera.

I read from our current book almost every day in the early afternoon, for ten or fifteen moments.  This was the fourth chapter book we've read this year.  We started in September with Francis Hodgson Burnett's The Land of the Blue Flower, then Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach; before Christmas we read Beverly Cleary's Runaway Ralph, and now this fine little novel.   It's a very special part of our day.  As soon as we finished, they started asking what we would read next.  I need a few days to think about it.

Reading aloud is just one aspect of our extended day group.  As I told the parents of these children last fall, the term "extended day" is really an outmoded American Montessori expression, which refers to a second work cycle in the early afternoon.  I find myself still using it, for lack of a better word.  The classic Montessori model was a 3-hour morning class for all the children, then the 3's and 4's would go home with mommy or daddy, and the 5's and 6's would stay into the afternoon (an extended day) with their smaller group of older peers.  No one stayed all day.  This is still the model at a place like Montessori School of Beaverton.  But of course, Chickadee is an all-day Children's House, with just three children leaving before nap.

For our first two years here, both bedroom and office were filled with nappers and nap pads every day, and only an occasional few children rested without sleeping. Terra, our first kindergartner, was still a napper last year.  So it's only this year that this afternoon group has really come together.    And even now, on any day, one of these kids can tell Erin he wants to rest, and together they get out a nap pad.  Lucy still naps more than half the time, the others rest once in a while.

So we have an intimate second work cycle with this smaller group of older children.  We read our chapter book, and then most days the children make their individual choices for what I often call "thinking" work.  It might be sensorial, language, or math, some activity or material in our cultural area, or some other special project.  They can work collaboratively or alone.  They  can spread out their work on the tables or the floor in a way that is difficult in the mornings.  They can complete one work in an hour, or save it to continue the next day.  I can give more individual, advanced lessons.  It's a fluid, dynamic time, with lots of engaged activity, lots of learning happening!

Once the nappers have headed to the office, we shift to the art room.  Helping hands usually comes first, like this cleaning of the boot area.  Almost every day, one of the kids moves all the boots and mops that strip.  It's a satisfying project, just big enough, and definitely needed.  While one mops, the other children straighten shelves or roll rugs or find some other small way to help, or they get out their first work. It's a way to pull our energy together and settle into the afternoon, before the chapter book ritual.

Here are a few other examples of afternoon work. Lucas has been writing with the movable alphabet; now he's putting it on paper:  "saber tooth tigers wer anchint cats with sooper long teeth and sharp ....."  It wasn't many months ago that he was practicing simple three-letter phonetic words, and now he can compose sentences.

Cara and Morgan shared their first big golden bead lesson a few weeks ago, and they did the decimal lay-out together.   Lots of math practice will happen over the next months and year, as they begin to assimilate the concepts here: the power of zero's, the consistency of numbers, the logic of manipulating them with addition and subtraction.   Although the children could choose this work in the morning, it's much more likely to happen in the afternoon - look how much room it takes!

Every older child has a 3-prong folder to collect and save their drawings and writings - we call them "story pages."  We keep the folders here all year, and they become wonderful histories of the child's interests and development.  The child draws a picture and writes as best she can; most of the time we do not help with spelling, because children learn to read and write the way they learn to speak - with lots and lots of free practice.

On this page Ava drew an elephant, and she wrote "eLfit."  I just got out her folder -  she has 40 pages in it, from January 2012 to now.  We will celebrate by sending it home and starting a new folder, any day now.

When time allows, we close our time together with a group lesson in music.  I've been using a great set of cards and music to introduce the instruments of the orchestra, called "Music Maestro Parade."  You will probably cringe:  it's a cassette tape, 20 years old, out of print, no CD available (I know, I simply must get it converted.)   When you have some extra time, perhaps some day when picking up, ask your child to lay it out and play some for you.  You need to hear it to appreciate it.  So even before Music Together begins, in this way as well as singing, the children are definitely experiencing music.

Of course, art is so important, and we do emphasize creative expression here, more than many Montessori schools do.  (Maria Montessori herself never emphasized art nor developed an art curriculum - so she wasn't perfect after all!) Every week or two, I initiate a special art project in the afternoon, perhaps doing it all together, perhaps a few at a time.  These older children have been developing their basic skills over the last two years or so, cutting and painting and drawing extensively.  Now they revel in creating meaningful art projects that we can first display, and then they can take home and celebrate.    Right now it's reptiles - these chalk pastels are treasures, aren't they?

So, extended day.  These "big kids" have the full, rich experience of their classroom community in the morning, with all the dynamics inherent in a busy, mixed-age group, and then they have their special small group time in the early afternoon.  In the morning they pursue their own interests, their own work, and their own friendships.  They set the example and support the younger children, and every time they help a child with a simpler work, they further cement their own learning, and build their own self-esteem.  They are constantly learning with all their senses engaged.   They experience an ebb and flow from morning to afternoon to morning again, and they modulate their own development.   It's a remarkably rich experience.

I unabashedly advocate for every child to stay here for their kindergarten year, which is again the classic Montessori model, for deep and good reasons.  It's the culmination of the whole first plane of development,  neurologically the last year of the "absorbent mind," and emotionally a critical period for the child's developing sense of self.  It completes the cycle of being one of the youngest in the classroom community, to being a middle child, to being a leader.  Unless a child goes on to elementary Montessori, it's probably their last chance to be in such a multi-age group.  Our 5- and 6-year-old kindergartners have an experience of love, connection, growth, and purpose that will always stay with them.  It's a beautiful and critical part of this most amazing process of each child creating him- or herself, one precious day at a time.